AprilCadence2013

Short Takes Belgium
The young reed player also invited British luminaries John Butcher and Paul
Lytton for an evening of solo, duo and trio performances and proved himself
one of the most creative representatives of Belgium’s fertile improvisation
scene. Other remarkable events were the performances by the hardhitting
trio Ballister (saxophone player Dave Rempis, cellist Fred Lonberg-
Holm and drummer Paal Nilssen-Love) and one by the brand new
Switchback, a quartet led by Chicagoan reed player Mars Williams, who
turned the band’s first concert into a small triumph that threaded the line
between ferocious free jazz and freely improvised music. Impressive.
And finally, there’s also John Hébert’s Mingus-project, which garnered
quite some attention, even from the mainstream media. More than just a
tribute, Hébert, himself a formidable bass player, actually composed new
music to interact with the legacy of the great bass player. For the concerts,
he played with a bunch of modern heavyweights: Taylor Ho Bynum, Tim
Berne, Ches Smith and Fred Hersch. As for the upcoming few weeks: there’s
a wealth to choose from, as Charles Lloyd and Jason Moran pay us a visit,
Ken Vandermark returns for a solo set and to join The Ex & Brass Unbound.
Plus, there are performances by Fred Van Hove, The Bad Plus, Eddie Prévost
and Ernst Reijseger to look forward to. Punkjazz trio Cactus Truck also plays
a release concert at Ghent’s Resistenza club on April 29th, celebrating its
ferocious new album “Live In USA”, which was recorded during a monster
tour of nearly 40 concerts that took them all over the US at the end of 2012.
Guy Peters
38 | CadenCe Magazine | april May June 2013